Various winches for attachment to a vehicle wheel have been proposed as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,784,164; 3,820,734; and 3,917,228. With a winch attached to each of the two power wheels, lines are attached to the winches and a stationary object (tree, post or other vehicle) and the vehicle may self propel itself out of a stuck location. These devices, which utilize a threaded hole in the end of a rod for engaging the threaded wheel lugs have several major disadvantages. First, the threading of the rod is expensive in the manufacturing process. Secondly, if the threaded rod becomes bent in use, which may occur in extraditing a vehicle deeply stuck, the threaded wheel lugs could bend causing damage to the wheel and prevent the removal of the wheel without cutting off the lugs. Thirdly, these devices are limited as to the variety of vehicles on which they will fit. That is, the threaded rods will fit only a single thread whereas the size and thread count of the wheel lugs on United States and foreign automobile and trucks vary in a minimum of six configurations: left and right thread, diameters of 7/16 th, 1/2, 9/16th and 5/8th inches, and different thread counts as well as metric versions. Furthermore, the lugs are spaced on different vehicles at various diameters and may consist of four to eight lugs which have differing radial spacing.
The present invention is directed to an attachable winch for vehicle wheels mounted on a vehicle by threaded lugs and lug nuts, which is inexpensive, and is of a configuration which reduces the possibility of the threaded lugs being bent under excessive torque applied to the winch, and can be arranged to be attachable to vehicle wheels regardless of the number of lugs, lug sizes, thread count, and radial spacing.